Anna the Adventuress

She stirred gently in her chair.

"My friend," she said, "I have been your pupil for two years. You have

watched all the uncouth creations of my brain come sprawling out upon

the canvas, and besides, we have been companions. Yet the fact remains

that you do not understand me at all. No, not one little bit. It is

extraordinary."

"It is," he replied, "the one humiliation of my life. My opportunities

have been immense, and my failure utter. If I had been your companion

only, and not your master, I might very well have been content to

accept you for what you seem. But there have been times, Anna, when

your work has startled me. Ill-drawn, without method or sense of

proportion, you have put wonderful things on to canvas, have drawn

them out of yourself, notwithstanding your mechanical inefficiency.

God knows how you did it. You are utterly baffling."

She laughed at him easily and mirthfully.

"Dear friend," she said, "do not magnify me into a physiological

problem. I should only disappoint you terribly some day. I think I

know where I am puzzling you now----"

"Then for Heaven's sake be merciful," he exclaimed. "Lift up one

corner of the curtain for me."

"Very well. You shall tell me if I am wrong. You see me here, an

admitted failure in the object to which I have devoted two years of my

life. You know that I am practically destitute, without means or any

certain knowledge of where my next meal is coming from. I speak

frankly, because you also know that no possible extremity would induce

me to accept help from any living person. You notice that I have

recently spent ten francs on a box of the best Russian cigarettes, and

that there are roses upon my table. You observe that I am, as usual,

fairly cheerful, and moderately amiable. It surprises you. You do not

understand, and you would like to. Very well! I will try to help you."

Her hand hung over the side of her chair nearest to him. He looked at

it eagerly, but made no movement to take it. During all their long

comradeship he had never so much as ventured to hold her fingers. This

was David Courtlaw, whose ways, too, had never been very different

from the ways of other men as regards her sex.

"You see, it comes after all," she continued, "from certain original

convictions which have become my religion. Rather a magniloquent term,

perhaps, but what else am I to say? One of these is that the most

absolutely selfish thing in the world is to give way to depression, to

think of one's troubles at all except of how to overcome them. I spend

many delightful hours thinking of the pleasant and beautiful things of

life. I decline to waste a single second even in considering the ugly

ones. Do you know that this becomes a habit?"